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or comprehended , and we wande r about in the wilds of mere faith , trusting to others , until we sure permitted to examine the Scriptures without assistance of notes or the help of fathers
There we discover no such worship is enjoined , no co-existence is even intimated , and we end where we began , in the belief of one , God , to which we now add that of his Son , the Mediator , who died for our sins .
I therefore infer , that eve ry one would be found , upon examination , coolly and dispassionately entered into , like me , AN UNITARIAN AT HEART .
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perstitious ceremonies also mentioned by them , as appendages to baptism aind to the dodrine of the Trinity , &c . But I am afraid it will be found , that Tertulltan and Justin Martyr he has misconceived and misapplied , and that the passages from Irenaeus and Origen are interpolations or corruptions . As to any elucidation from the New Testament , he indirectly gives that up , admitting that " direct evidence is wanting * . " Perhaps he thought that on this ground the contest could not be at least successfully maintained , or he ,
perhaps , deemed it prudent to sound a retreat to a place where he could not be so easily followed 5 or , perhaps , that it became a superior genius to strike out of the beaten way : so that he has not only seized hold of the main argument , by which Popery
defends its wildest , boldest fancies , but has so managed it , that it may leave , perhaps , a doubt in some minds respecting his orthodoxy on the genuineness of the Scriptures , " The uniform , the universal , the undisputed testimony of the Christian church . "
In like manner , " Infant Baptism is of apostolical authority , as being attested by the unanimous voice of Christian antiquity , " ( very eloquent language and of great authority , no doubt , ) though there is not one word about it ( Infant Baptism ) in the
apostolical writings , ( a very trifling consideration , indeed , according to this writer , ) nor one word , which even by inference or allusion , can be applied to it in the apostolical fathers * Positive testimonies in the apostolical writings there are none , by his own
confession - and the inferences all go in the contrary direction . In the apostolical fathers , as they are called , there is not a single allusion to any thing like Mr . B . ' s Infant Baptism , the sprinkling of babes : to what has been called Believer ' s Baptism and
Adult Baptism , there are the clearest allusions . Baptism was considered of importance ; and , judging by the consequence afterwards attached to Infant Baptism , must have been of some then ; and yet , thoiigh resting solely on apostolical authority , it is never once mentioned or alluded to in the
above writings . But be these matters for the present as they may , when the gentleman has not thought proper to pot bia own
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On Mr . Belsltarris Censure of ' ' Robinson .
{ Continued from p . 389 . ) Sir , July 2 ^ 1818 , MR . B . " But in vain did I search the pages of Mr . Robinson for 3 single fact or argument to elucidate the much controverted question con * cerning Infant Baptism /'
Mr . B . had just before informed us , that he had been reading Mr . R / s History with great avidity 9 and afterwards , that having searched in vain , he closed the book with disappointment and regret This appeal to our pity should be allowed its claim Who would refuse pitying the poor man
that should dig for diamonds in a coal mine , or for pearls , in a clay-pit ; and vyho the anxious inquirer , that , in a History of baptizing men and women by immersion , should expect to find ready-fabricated facts and fine-spun arguments , for what Mr . B . calls Infant Baptism ? This is the proper business of those who write the
history of Infant Baptism or 1 reatises concerning it ; and this has been done by those writers who are of any account in that controversy . They have , as it became them , elucidated their own view of the subject under several heads .
In a Plea , however , for Infant Baptism , lately published , I do not find the writer has elucidated his subject in a single instance : for , to rest the authority solely on tradition , is not to
elucidate it . but to leave it in obscurity . Tjertulliaji , Irenfleus , Origen and Justin Martyr , to whom he refeta , would nc > k be of much authority , if admitted , to be of any , unless it should be allowed to extend to the other su-
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On Mr . Sekhams Censure of Robinson * 493
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rot . ± iiu ' * Sx
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1818, page 433, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2478/page/25/
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